The ever pertinent Bankwatch has an interesting post on why banks need to become friends of their customers to stay relevant in an age of social networking. He sees three drivers that make it the perfect time to deliver the next level of banking experience. Attention crash, with more demands on our time we have little or no time to the things we used to do, the way we used to. The coming of mobile applications (like Twitter for micro blogging). 2.0 technology, the static web, we all know is moving to deliver all kinds of connected possibilities. Banks need to care because they are losing people’s attention. As financial services fragment and are re-positioned and offered by many, the lure of the one-stop branch is just not a lure any more. Opinions and views of banks (and everything else) are shaped online today. When we refine that idea, the opinion source has to be within the blogging/social space. Banks have to be where their customers are. The branch must come to the customer. Earlier post in the iContract newsletter, Friending is the new advertising.